2023 has the odd distinction of having several films built around business deals and products, such as "Tetris," "Blackberry," and even "Flaming Hot." "Air" is one of these, which tells the inspirational story of how Nike, an underdog in the basketball shoe business back in 1984, managed to sign Michael Jordan to one of the most lucrative endorsement deals of all time and launch the Air Jordan brand. Nike's talent and marketing folks, Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon) and Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman) are positioned as the heroes, with Nike CEO Phil Knight (Ben Affleck) grumpily supporting them as the risks they want to take keep compounding. On the other side of the negotiating table are Jordan's formidable mother Deloris (Viola Davis) and agent David Falk (Chris Messina). We only ever see Michael Jordan himself from behind or with his face obfuscated, like Jesus in "Ben Hur."
If you take the film at face value, it works perfectly fine. The performances are all good, with Messina and Davis getting some of the better monologues. Ben Affleck's direction is nothing fancy, but it does the job of resurrecting the '80s, with the help of nostalgic media clips and a soundtrack full of familiar hits. The hero worship of Michael Jordan is laid on pretty thick, but comes across as genuine. I'm sure there are sneakerheads out there who would enjoy learning how Air Jordans came about, and who the major players were behind the scenes. I, on the other hand, have no particular love for professional sports, footwear, or self-congratulatory corporate hagiography, so I sat through "Air" trying very hard not to roll my eyes at certain points. To be blunt, I didn't buy what it was selling.
The last time I saw Phil Knight onscreen was in the little-seen documentary "Claydream," where Knight ousted beloved stop motion animator Will Vinton from his own studio, eventually taking it over and turning it into Laika. Knight gives a lot to charity, and I'm sure he's a lovely person in his private life, but as a businessman, the man is a shark. There's no other way to become a billionaire. Watching Ben Affleck play Phil Knight as this blustery, but benign eccentric rubbed me the wrong way. And while I'm sure that "Air" resembles the truth, there's no doubt in my mind that this is a heavily prettied-up version of the real story, with all the rough edges sanded down. Nearly all the major figures who appear in "Air" are still alive, and the script is clearly doing its best to show everyone in the best light possible so no one has any possible reason to take offense.
Frankly, "Air" is a story told from the wrong perspective. Late in the film, negotiations hit a snag when Deloris Jordan asks for profit participation on the sales of the shoes, which forces Vaccaro to admit that endorsement deals don't compensate the players fairly. Michael Jordan's Nike deal actually helped to change this, which only adds to his status as a legendary player. However, Jordan also remains an extreme outlier in a sport that has systematically exploited its players. This is acknowledged in the film itself, but far too late and far too little. No matter how much the film tries to paint Nike as the underdogs, the stakes are undeniably higher for Jordan and his family. So it feels incredibly myopic to be telling this story largely from Nike's point of view. A similar shoe deal subplot in "King Richard" was handled far more appropriately.
Make no mistake that "Air" is about Michael Jordan through and through. Screenwriter Alex Convery made it clear that he came up with the idea for the film because of a segment of the Michael Jordan miniseries, "The Last Dance." But while "The Last Dance" was about the man himself, "Air" is about the legend, and the commodification of that legend by a shoe company. Sure, the blow is softened by Vaccaro being portrayed as a basketball lover and an especially prescient talent scout, who is able to get the deal rolling by convincing everyone at Nike of Jordan's impending greatness, but in the end the deal is a triumph of capitalism, not sports, and not fandom. And as fun as "Air" is to watch at times, especially when Chris Messina is going full tilt, it never stops feeling like a shoe commercial.
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